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- Newsletter #16
Newsletter #16
Whitespark Local Insider
Whitespark's Monthly Local Search Newsletter
Local InsiderMay 2016Have you ever felt like Google Maps was playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey with you? Except instead of it being a donkey it's your beloved business location and that pin couldn't be further from the target? And to make matters worse the game never seems to end?Recently, we encountered 2 significant (and interesting) location issues that could impact local rankings for our clients.1. Map Pin Movement - Up, down, back & forth, this pin is very confused.We had one client who was experiencing huge map pin movements and never quite in the same place. The most recent change in Map Maker by an "anonymous" helper moved the location substantially north. Not only does this impact a visitors directions to the business, it can have a negative effect on local rankings.Solution Add correction to Map Maker. Contact Google Map Maker Forum and figure out if a Regional Lead can assist with the edit. Get change approved and restore the correct geo-location data. 2. Surprise - You're actually located in this building, says Google, so it must be true.Another recent issue we encountered was a client's address being updated to include the building's name, however; it was the building across the street! What was really interesting about this change was that none of the other businesses in the same building experienced this update.Our client, has been located at the same business for over ten years, so what the heck, Maps? Sadly, there is still no logical explanation to date of what triggered this change. After multiple unsuccessful attempts to update the details through the GMB dashboard we had to get assistance from Google support - but not the team you may expect.Solution Skip the GMB support team (because we lack the patience to wait 1-2 weeks). Tweet the rad @GoogleSmallBiz team and kindly ask for assistance (shout out to Joy Hawkins for this rad support tip). Restore the correct location information and all is as it should be (this took only 1 day).When it comes to Google Maps it's best to always expect the unexpected. Keep an eye on your listing and pin location. Even if you've been at your location for over a decade. Cheers,Team Whitespark
Recent Blog Posts
Have you ever envied the review sites with the nice yellow stars in the search results; like Yelp, Angie’s List, HomeAdvisor and others? Implement these stars easily on your reviews and product/service pages and take your organic search results from dull to bright. Get the code here.
Have you ever noticed event listings in your search results and wondered how you can get them? Do you want to get more clicks, more visitors, more business by easily promoting your events? If you organize events, either online or offline, and want to get extra exposure in the SERP's check out our step-by-step instructions on taking your event listings to the next level with Google Calendar events.
Here's a quick sneak peak of Google's new mobile friendly tool. As Google mentioned back in March, they are rolling out an update to mobile search results throughout May, which increases the effect of the ranking signal to help users find even more pages that are relevant and mobile-friendly.
Around The Web
Are you using rich snippets for their intended use? Google recently took action on major travel sites for showing product pricing rich snippets on airline prices. "John [from Google] said that these sites were using the product rich snippets for multiple products on the same page, as opposed to its intended use of one price per page."
If you haven't already heard, Google has made a considerable change to search results pages by increasing the length of title tags to 70–71 characters (previous 50–60 characters) and adding an additional 16-20 characters per line in descriptions.
"If there was a problem, yo, [she'll] solve it, check out" Joyce's presentation from Local U about how to troubleshoot Google My Business issues.
Actionable tips and techniques straight from the pros to help get your business dominating Google’s local, organic and maps results.
"Answer Boxes” or “Rich Answers” are the search result features that appear at the top of some queries in Google Search. While the boxes are definitely here to stay, Richard Baxter has a potential solution to help you optimize the results.
"Every small business owner needs tools to get their marketing campaigns off the ground. Frankly, too many of these tools are only for enterprise-level businesses or require a budget that doesn't always justify the ROI."
Whitespark will be at MozCon again this year! Make sure you come say hi and don't miss your chance to win a FREE trip. Click on the image above to learn more.
Upcoming Conferences
June 5 - 7
Cambridge, MA
June 22 - 23
Seattle, WA
June 19 - 21
Vancouver, BC
June 23
Nashville, TN
June 24
Minneapolis, MN
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